In August, in a tense and emotional moment between Bluewater Council and the community of Bayfield, the decision to remove the ice from the local arena was made.

As a follow up to the Municipality of Bluewater’s decision to remove the ice from the Bayfield Community Centre and Arena, members of the Bayfield community met to discuss what is to come next for the facility.

“Tonight’s purpose is to present information or missed facts, and to open up for questions, concerns or comments,” explained Councillor Bill Whetstone.

Held at the Bayfield Town Hall earlier this week, the public meeting saw an attendance of over 120 concerned citizens and business owners.

The meeting was to inform the community on the history of the Arena and its relationship to the Municipality of Bluewater, as well as to discuss options of what to do next, in an effort to save the ice at the Bayfield Community Centre.

Information was presented to the audience at the meeting, which included topics such as ice usage hours and total revenue for the building.

“You can see that in 2013, the total revenue of the building was $26, 199 and in 2016, we turned that revenue around to $78, 469. The ice revenue is 79 percent of the actual amount that is coming in. As far as usage is concerned, in 2013, the usage in the building was 712 hours and in 2016, we were up to 1807 hours,” explained Ron Keys.

Organized and led by BACPA (Ron Keys), BFIT (Sandy Scotchmer) and Bluewater Councillor Bill Whetstone, the theme of the open discussion was ‘One Vision, One Plan’.

According to Keys, Scotchmer and Whetstone, many in the community believe both BACPA and BFIT are opponents, when in fact, they have agreed to unify.

This amalgamation has an aim to improve the operations of current and future needs of the community.

For BFIT, the healthy sustainability of the community of Bayfield is at risk due to the decision to remove the ice.

According to BFIT, once the ice is removed, the facility will no longer be geared towards the active lifestyle of all ages and the quality of life that Bayfield currently offers may be compromised.

The idea of a new multi-generational and multi-use facility in Bayfield presented by BACPA and BFIT could provide recreational programs and enrichment of residents.

According to BACPA, the group has increased usage of the facility, offering four main events that contribute a positive economic impact.

In addition, the BACPA claims that with support of service groups, businesses and individuals, the group was able to successfully triple the annual revenue in the entire facility.

There were some questions raised about why more members of Council were not in attendance at the public meeting, especially when Whetstone could not speak on behalf of Council and had to voice his personal opinions instead.

The reason for the lack of Councillors at the meeting had to do with if more than half of Council were to meet, it would become an official meeting and in that case, needs to be in the Council Chambers.

Members of Council could have attended the public meeting at the Bayfield Town Hall, but they would have had to orchestrate that there were less than half of them in attendance.

“There is a way that we could get our voice in front of Council and it is to be in their facility. They can’t leave their Council and go to a public meeting like this; it has to be in their Chambers,” explained Scotchmer.

“We could be the first on the agenda and we could discuss the motion and talk about the ice. That might be a good show of having the town show up and support.”

Except for Councillor Whetstone, no other Municipality of Bluewater Councillor was in attendance at the public meeting and therefore the other Councillors could not comment or answer questions that were raised after the discussion.

“The first arena was built in 1953 by the members of the Bayfield community. This was a community driven, community built, community run facility,” said Whetstone, alluding to the fact that the community would like to continue to run, maintain and enjoy the centre.

Scotchmer wanted to meet with Deputy Mayor Ferguson to discuss the upcoming feasibility study: “As you can imagine, a feasibility study is going to be really critical in this whole process. We want to make sure that the terms of reference for the feasibility study are what is needed or what is required.”

In the feasibility study, the new amalgamated committee would like the following three questions will be handled: Is it feasible to have a facility for all ages? Is it feasible to keep the ice for another three years while the community resolves the question? Is it feasible to replace the existing building or to build a new one?

“The future of this building [to be a multi-generational and multi-use facility], if it’s done properly, will keep Bayfield sustainable for many years to come. If it’s not done properly, it will actually deter and start to shrink the future of Bayfield,” added Whetstone.

That evening, President from the Bayfield Optimist Club, Glen Steinson also spoke to the crowd and announced that the club have decided to support the initiative and be involved in another successful project for the community.

Events put on by the BACPA to raise money for the Community Centre, such as the Beer Wine and Food Festival, the Tyke Hockey Tournament, the Over 50s Tournament and a fundraising golf tournament, sees revenue poured into the surrounding community from people attending those events.

According to Keys, Scotchmer and Whetstone, there seems to be a piece missing from the decision to remove the ice; the decision was made rather quickly and without any inclusion of which events, such as hockey tournaments, produce the majority of revenue for the facility.

“The decision was made very quickly, but I don’t think they [Council] have considered that Bayfield does have feelings about this facility. I think that we need to keep applying pressure to try to change their mind,” added Scotchmer.

“The feasibility study is going to be really critical and it’s important to have the ice addressed, because if it is shown that ice is needed, then a motion should be made to keep the ice.”

Currently, there is a survey and petition for those in the community who wish to provide their voice to the issue at hand in Bayfield regarding the arena, at Change.org.

“The biggest thing that I want everyone to come away with [from this meeting] is ‘One Vision, One Plan’. We are one community, let’s make sure we work together to get the vision for this community that will stay and make sure our kids can play here for generations,” Whetstone concluded at the end of the public meeting.

“One of the key messages that we want to come out of here with is that if we are going to move forward with this, we need to make sure that that ice stays where it is for the next three years, until we get this project fully moving forward.”

The BACPA and BFIT, working together as one, want to move forward with the feasibility study as soon as possible.

Once the results of the study come through, an appropriate plan can be set out in order to bring that information in front of Bluewater Council. The committee would then move forward with the plan of saving the ice at the Bayfield Arena.